How to Play the Carnyx. Performer Talks with John Kenny | Interview | NottNOISE
To feed back, please fill in our survey: https://bit.ly/3ogIHuj Part of NottNOISE New Music Marathon, 29 November 2020. For full programme see https://bit.ly/3mhRJX5 #NottNOISE #NottFAR ___ In 1993 Scottish trombonist John Kenny became the first person for 2000 years to play the great iron age Celtic war horn known as the carnyx. He has since gone on to compose and perform on the instrument touring internationally, in the concert hall, on radio, television, and film. In this part 2, John Kenny discusses how he plays the instrument. __ The first question everyone asks about the carnyx is "how did they play it?" - and the short answer is, we just don't know. We know they were played in time of war from Roman accounts - terrified invaders described not a mere musical sound but the very landscape coming to life! These instruments were used in multiples, obviously to great effect - but they were almost certainly used in time of peace for other functions in society, perhaps rites of passage, funerals, festivals. The instruments were magnificent in their stylized embodiment of a wild-boar's head, highly tooled and crafted, out of exceedingly valuable materials (indeed, analysis of the bronze alloy shows that the Picts hi-jacked some of the constituents from the Roman invaders!). It is certain that the players of such an instrument occupied an important place in society, and likely that the craft of playing would be passed down from father to son, becoming a guarded mystery. These were a highly sophisticated people, with a mighty oral poetic tradition - most unlikely, then, that the playing technique of the carnyx should not be fully explored. As a modern brass player it is fairly easy to get a sound out of the carnyx in the conventional manner - however, because the tube and "mouthpiece" aperture are so wide the breath disappears very quickly. One blast and it's all over! I found I could achieve a range of nearly five octaves, with a most unusual overtone series and some overtones much stronger than others. In addition, the wooden tongue becomes a percussion instrument as it moves inside the head; the head itself has a bronze "soft-palette", and so the sound emerges through a divided resonating gourd. The full range of brass players tonguing effects can readily be employed - but to find a distinctive voice for the carnyx, I believe one must look closely at the instrument itself, and what it represents: a wild boar. This beast, once common throughout northern Europe, was a terrifying adversary, fast, powerful and vicious - and totemic to the Celts. The scream of this animal is shrill and almost human - and so I have combined my voice frequently with the instrumental sound, to try to animate it. Finally, to overcome the problem of lack of sustaining power, I have incorporated the technique of circular breathing, further bending the sound by changing the shape of the oral cavity in exactly the same manner in which we produce the varied vowel sounds of speech. Given the ancient Celtic predilection for drones in music, I think it is not too far-fetched to imagine that these people learned how to circular breath - many other ancient cultures have done so, most notably Australia's Aboriginal folk, who's Didgeridoo is the world's most ancient lip-reed instrument. The accompanying track to The Voice of The Carnyx was recorded in the splendid glassvaulted atrium of the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, on May 24 1993. John Whiting recorded the individual tracks and then played them back in the space, with me playing "sound-on -sound in "real time". The final section, an amalgam of ideas from the rest of the piece, was then subject to live digital sound transformation. This is the first ever notated piece for the carnyx, and the first composition for the instrument for at least 1,800 years - since then many composers have written for it, in a huge variety of combinations. The carnyx has sprung back to life, and I hope that other players will now help to enrich its voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment